Mongoose bat packs more power: Hayden

New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) After smacking Delhi Daredevils bowlers for a match-winning 93 with the ‘Mongoose bat’, Chennai Super Kings opener Matthew Hayden said Friday that the specialy designed bats for Twenty20 pack more power than normal bats. The former Australian opener took the bat, which has a smaller blade and a long handle, when he was on 19 with the team’s score at 27 for one at 3.1 overs.

Hayden immediately swung the bat into action, hitting Rajat Bhatia for three fours and a six in the fourth over.

Part-time spinner Tillakaratne Dilshan was also at the receiving end of the ‘Mongoose’ fury as Hayden smashed the Sri Lankan for three sixes in the eighth over, which forced Daredevils stand-in skipper Dinesh Karthik to take a strategic time-out.

Hayden made the maximum use of the new bat, hitting nine fours and seven sixes.

“It is always good to try out new products. The mongoose bat is a good product as its gives you lot of power to hit the ball a long way. It is very much like a normal bat, but it surely gives a great deal of power with its sweet spot at the centre of the bat,” he said.

Super Kings stand-in captain Suresh Raina, who became the youngest captain in IPL, said: “Hayden has been practicing with the bat for some time now. Today in the nets, he practiced for two hours. It was different for him. I also tried it at the nets, but it didn’t click for me.”

Daredevils captain Dinesh Karthik said the mongoose bat didn’t make any difference.

“Hayden plays the same way when he bats with a normal bat as well,” he said.

The mongoose bat is tailor-made for the shorter format and has a five-centimeter thick base that boasts of a sweet spot twice the size of that on a traditional bat. With it even a pace bowler’s saving grace - a yorker - can be dispatched to the ropes.